We live in your world - March 2011

Our commitment to promoting the advancement of women at work has been recognised by Australia’s Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency (EOWA) which has named us a 2011 Employer of Choice for Women.

Our CEO Mike Smith said, “As Chair of our Diversity Council, I am proud of the progress we’ve made in supporting women to fully contribute their skills and experience in the workplace.”

“Promoting diversity, including gender equality, is not just a social issue; it’s critical to our performance. Creating a workplace that encourages diverse thinking and is open and accepting of people’s differences will help us outperform and achieve our super regional aspirations,” he said.

The citation coincided with our celebrations for the 100 year anniversary of International Women’s Day (IWD) and recognises the progress we have made to support women at work, over many years. Our approach includes:

A Group-wide target to have 40% women in management by 30 September 2011 (up from 38.4 in 2010)

Gender diversity targets built-in to the performance ‘scorecards’ of our most senior executives.

Recruiting more women into senior line roles:

ANZ now has 3 women on its Management Board

We have three female CEOs leading key countries in our Asia Pacific growth business

Focused action to achieve gender pay equity, including:

Asking managers to confirm females are fairly compensated against male peers as part of our annual review process

Making adjustments where unjustified discrepancies in salaries and incentives are found

Reviewing performance based compensation to confirm there is no unconscious bias in reward allocation.

Flexible work arrangements, including flexible work options, career breaks and lifestyle leave to help our staff balance life priorities with work and manage their careers.

Parental support – including 14 weeks paid leave, a new childcare allowance which provides Australian parents returning to work with a $4000 grant to help them transition back to work and payment of superannuation on all forms of paid parental leave.

Leadership and advocacy groups such as our Diversity Council, chaired by our CEO, Divisional Diversity Councils and Gender Action Network which are finding innovative ways to support women and improve gender diversity across our business.

We are also committed to supporting the advancement of women in wider-society, particularly those from disadvantaged and low-income backgrounds. Our Saver Plus, MoneyMinded, MoneyBusiness and Progress Loans financial capability initiatives for example, include mostly female participants and aim to encourage and support their economic empowerment, education and broader inclusion in society. In addition, 75% of our Indigenous trainees are female.

The Employer of Choice for women citation follows similar recognition in the past year around the world including the Workplace Work and Life Award in New Zealand for our flexible work policies and an IT Export Award in India which recognises the high percentage of women employed in our Technology business there.